


Ghosts of State Street

by deanobanion



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: Gangsters, Gen, Historical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 16:19:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3816895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deanobanion/pseuds/deanobanion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sad. sad ghosts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts of State Street

At first the pain was sharp and concentrated in six burning points, but it quickly spread outward. His entire body was on fire with it until, suddenly, he felt nothing at all. Dean had taken enough punches in his life to know that soon this shock would fade and the pain would be back, worse, so he ran toward the door in the hope that he could finish the job before it knocked him on his ass. One of his shooters had shaken his hand first, a feigned courtesy used to stop him from drawing his own gun, but he found it now still tucked into the pockets of his jacket. They would regret leaving him standing. 

The only problem was, as he much as he pushed against the door and twisted the handle, he couldn’t open it. "Son of a bitch,“ he mumbled. He watched helplessly as the men piled into a powder blue car and it tore off down the street. "Son of a bitch!”

He ran back toward the counter in search of something- a key, a rock to throw through the glass for Christ sakes, anything- when he saw it. His frustration cooled, giving way to a new shock. “That explains it.” He watched himself bleed out on the wooden floorboards.

\--

A group of strangers covered his body with a white sheet and carried him away. During the following weeks he was forced only to watch as a flood of unfamiliar faces came through the shop, peeked through the glass, took pictures. Detectives. Reporters. Over-curious citizens of Chicago.

Slowly they stopped coming and business began again. He listened for details in his friends’ conversations, details that he was powerless do anything with if he wanted to. Torrio. Capone. Genna. Anselmi. Scalise. Yale. He wanted to.

Dean thought about himself, no more than seven years old, big eyed, snuggled in bed with the covers pulled up to his neck, listening as his mother told him stories. He always preferred the scary ones, so he knew that poor, vengeful spirits always came back to seek justice for their gruesome ends. When Dean shook his older brother awake later one night to ask if he thought there were ghosts in their apartment, Floyd glared at him. “They’re not real,” he sighed, and rolled back over. He was snoring again in a few minutes leaving Dean to suspect every creaking sound in the dark on his own. Floyd was always the less imaginative O'Banion boy; he followed in his father’s footsteps into plaster work and died of pneumonia at 25. It seemed that inhaling all of that dust had proved more dangerous, by more than a few years, than the business he shunned his younger brother for getting into. But Floyd was wrong about a lot of things, even spirits it seemed.

But even if young Dean had been right, what was he expected to do here? His murderers weren’t coming back to the shop, and he couldn’t even walk out the goddamn door. No one could feel him when he tried to touch them. No one could hear him screaming at them. So much for appearing before his killers in the dead of night, pale and covered in blood, and scaring them enough to make them run shrieking down the street. 

Viola wasn’t here either. It was probably for the best that she didn’t come, but he had so much to tell her. He was sorry that they didn’t get to do everything he promised her. That they never got around to having a few freckled faced kids like she wanted. He learned there were still forms of pain someone, or something, like him could feel.

\--

Eventually, he found he was able to flip pages of the newspapers that people left behind. On a whim, he tried to tip over Bugs’ coffee. The cup slid and fell to the floor with a crash. As it fell, the contents ended up in his friend’s lap and completely ruined his suit. 

Later, feeling emboldened by his new found power, he made Drucci chase a one hundred dollar bill around the shop, making sure it fluttered slightly just as he was about to pick it up. As silly as it was, being a pesky breeze was the most fun something like him could have. 

Testing himself, he managed to nudge a heavy old flower pot dangerously close enough to the edge of a high shelf. If he waited for Hymie to walk by to give it the final push. It would drop in front of him, shatter into a million pieces, and make him jump through the roof. But when he was perfectly in position, Dean noticed the dark circles under his eyes. His suit hung loosely on his frame. Hymie wasn’t sleeping well. He couldn’t bring himself to go through with it.

He followed him upstairs to his old office, now Hymie’s he guessed, and watched him working quietly. “You remember that time we got pinched by the cops at the telegraph office? What year was that…" It was an old story, one of their favorites to tell together. "This is your part, you’re better at remembering the details.”

Hymie continued to write.

“What did I say to them before they cuffed us?” 

No response. 

“We’re just here to apply for jobs officer, I swear on my ma!” he said, acting it out with hand over his heart. As he laughed at their own past foolishness, he thought he saw the corners of Hymie’s mouth turn upward too. It was probably a coincidence, but he kept going. He talked to him until Hymie got up from the desk, turned out the light and laid down on the couch. 

Dean listened for his breathing to slow and managed to use whatever small effect he had over the physical world to pull a blanket over his friend. He watched him sleep for a while, quietly. 

He kept it up each night, and Hymie slept soundly. In a month or so he started to look better: the dark circles lightened, he laughed easier. Maybe my continued existence isn’t completely pointless, Dean thought.

\--

Dean was arranging a Rube Goldberg of a contraption around the shop when he heard car doors shut. Looking out the window, he saw Hymie and some of the boys approaching. “They usually stay out later,” he muttered. When they opened the door they would set it off, but it wasn’t finished and now there wasn’t enough time. He moved quickly back to his work, frantically trying to get all of the pieces in place, when he heard a shot. Then another. Another. Too many to count. He looked out again and couldn’t see his friends approaching anymore, only a gathering crowd.

He touched the door and this time it worked. He could leave. He walked out the door and saw one of the men, Patrick Murray, dead on the pavement. Someone covered his face with a hat. He made his way toward the other gathering crowd of people. This time he ran.

Firemen, first on the scene, were pulling Hymie into their vehicle. He wasn’t moving. The part of his face that Dean could see, the part that wasn’t covered in blood, was pale, almost white. Once they got him in the back of the car, he started thrashing about. Dean grabbed his hand and he stopped moving. “It’s okay,” he said. He knew he could feel him now. He could see him. “You did enough, okay? You did enough. Let go.” And he did, but not of Dean’s hand. 

They left the car together and walked toward darkness matching the others’ silent strides.

**Author's Note:**

> _ If Heaven and Hell decide that they both are satisfied _
> 
> _ Illuminate the “No"s on their vacancy signs _
> 
> _ If there’s no one beside you when your soul embarks _
> 
> _ Then I’ll follow you into the dark _


End file.
